Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

14 reviews

lais's review against another edition

challenging fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting

Moderate: Domestic abuse

dreamdust1600's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Its sapphic and it slaps

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Murder, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Classism

Moderate: Sexual harassment

hue's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

The backside text hardly does any justice to the story within. Marie Rutkoski has woven an intricate, fantastically drab world where injustice is hideously clear yet accepted. 

I adored the characters, the differences between High Kith and Half-Kith and Middlings, the writing was lucious and lurid, the telling captivatingly vivid. 

Nirrim was such a pleasure to follow as she wandered through her thoughts and actions, disassembling all that she had grown up believing, never realising how twisted and unfair it all had been. 

If you enjoyed this wonderful story, I recommend two other books that gave me the same feeling as this did.
1. The City of Woven Streets by Emmi Itäranta
2. Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Gaslighting

jainabee's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I got this in the Banned Books Box subscription and was curious to read something totally new to me. Had a hard time putting it down and now am hungry for more! The story twists and turns in ways that startled me and I gave up trying to predict anything about the characters. How refreshing! And lovely writing. A pleasure to read and I'm so glad there's more!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Blood, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Homophobia, Torture, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War

Considering all of the challenging content in the book, it is all handled in a way that I could tolerate (I am somewhat squeamish) and I did not feel personally triggered. I have no problem with putting a book down if the violence is too graphic or gory for my tastes or if the cruelty and abuse goes beyond a brief explicit detail.

octopus_farmer's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

It really did throw the potential for the next book in the trash huh. Other worldbuilding was cool and I liked Sid and Nirrim’s relationship but that ending really didn’t do anything for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Blood

k_aro's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I really didn't expect much from The Midnight Lie—be as it may, I'm a little bit of a snob over fantasy novels due to the fact that I read a large quantity as a kid, and I saw it recommended from BookTok, which, based on my previous BookTok books has been... a mixed bag. Admittedly I wasn't shocked by many of the reveals, but I don't think that's a critique of the book; I think it's smart about revealing just enough that it makes sense on re-reads.

That said, I did not expect the ending! It's not like, a cheap plot twist, but it's such a painful refusal of closure that it hurts me just thinking about it. I didn't cry over the ending, but sheesh, I'm really looking forward to reading the next book. I also think it's a super well-written villain ending—I've read some books *coughs* The Young Elites *coughs* that REALLY muck up the villain ending and essentially spoil the experience of having read the book at all.

I do have some things I don't love about this book: for one, that Nirrim is so blind to Raven's consistent emotional/domestic abuse, despite her ability to spot it in other people (i.e. Aden). Like, I get that Nirrim and Raven's relationship is different to that of her and Aden's, but it just feels kind of weird that up until the proper reveal of who Raven is, Nirrim's insistent on thinking of her as the same one-dimensional mother figure who sometimes makes mistakes and hurts her. I'm not saying Nirrim has to be on board to condemn Raven the first time she does something bad, but it's just... weird, I guess.

I also think that the first like... fourth? Of the book is a little slow. It's got a lot to set up, so I'm not, like, mad that it's slow, but it does make it a bit hard to get into.

Also, there's certainly NO commentary going on about how the Half Kith's body parts are literally being used for the pleasure of the High Kith. Nope. No commentary at all. Not even about how Raven extorts families to get them families to move up in the world. Nada. Zip. Nothing. (This is sarcasm—sometimes, fantasy caste systems can be a bit... overstated, which to a certain degree could be true here, it also I think treats it with a bit more real parallels that it feels more verisimilitudinous to me.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Trafficking, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Classism

Moderate: Drug use, Rape, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Death of parent, and Lesbophobia

A note on the moderate content warning for rape:

The only reason I hesitate to put it under graphic is because, under all stops, the line between whether or not Aden rapes Nirrim is... concerningly thin, but still technically there. It's highly coercive and under most circumstances, would probably be considered rape—and this is not to downplay the real sexual trauma for whom coercive sex was the source of it—but Nirrim (until a certain moment) is technically never threatened verbally/coerced verbally. Is it highly coercive and at the very least dubious consent? Yes. But is it rape? I really can't tell, and given the purpose of trigger warnings as warnings that might *trigger* someone, I'm not 100% sure what to categorize it as.

Aside from that, the homophobia/lesbophobia is rarely actually acted out character-on-character; it's only as a facet of the fact that the lower Kiths are not permitted to have same-sex relationships. The actual brass tacks of characters being in same-sex relationships are not considered *morally* wrong.

paperbackprincess19's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This is a fast paced fantasy world with a cast system which reminded me of The Hunger Games.

The characters were interesting but the world building was what kept me turning the pages.

However, mid way I lost the attention towards this book, which is funny as that's when their travel begun and the adventure begins.

I still finished it, but I did lose momentum and nearly DNF. However I think I'll still give book 2 a go as I enjoyed the world and the writing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Sexual content, Slavery, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Colonisation

giuliaprim's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Classism

i_kin_cardan's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

emily_2002's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Violence